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Forum:New Background
Basically this wiki needs a new background. The old one was fine when it simply filled the edges of the screen, and some gaps, when the old skin had a fluid layout. The current one, especially with wider screens, looks awful, it looks like a Windows 98 wallpaper. Most importantly, however, it's not very 'Mass Effect'. The background issue was discussed at length in the skin update thread, and was just about to settle before the thread died. Most of us seemed to really like the Citadel one, so instead of redoing the discussion, I'm coming right out and proposing the Citadel background. Here it is: The reason it has a big empty space in the middle is because there is a file size limit that means that the full original image would need to be much worse quality. Deleting parts of the image that won't ever be seen ensures the background can remain high quality and have a small enough file size. It also means I can use some trickery and split the image apart enough that the Presidium is visible on the side of the page, which makes it obvious it is the Citadel and is one of the more iconic images from Mass Effect, while not having to stretch it, or fill in the gap. Here's what it looks like with an article: Voting VOTING HAS CLOSED AND THE PROPOSAL PASSES 14-0-0 For #As Proposer. JakePT 14:06, April 25, 2011 (UTC) #Although a little too white, it is definitely an improvement from the last! Personally, I would have preferred to go with something a little more darker and "spacier" lol. But nonetheless I'm for this. Good job Jake. --Humans Vanish 14:11, April 25, 2011 (UTC) #Looks good, I'm for it. PikaShepard 14:32, April 25, 2011 (UTC) #I wouldn't have minded keeping the old background for a while longer, but I think I can go along with this change. -- Commdor (Talk) 14:33, April 25, 2011 (UTC) #It almost appears as if the Citadel is a wasteland, from this pic, even though it clearly isn't. I like the proposed background because it shows how monumental the Citadel really is, compared to how it's seen from outer space. Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem 14:36, April 25, 2011 (UTC) #Support. The Illusive Man 14:41, April 25, 2011 (UTC) #I'm already having this as my customized background since...Oct last year. So yeah.. definitely support! — Teugene (Talk) 15:05, April 25, 2011 (UTC) #Support, even though it won't show fully with my resolution. It's about time the starry background goes away. --kiadony 15:06, April 25, 2011 (UTC) #Considering I've had this for my laptop's desktop background since I found it, about a year now I think, I'll support it as well. Lancer1289 17:13, April 25, 2011 (UTC) #I'd also like to support this background. Although, I wouldn't mind alternatives as well like a wallpaper of the Reaper invasion of Earth for the upcoming Mass Effect 3. Freakium 23:19, April 25, 2011 (UTC) #Bring it on! Looks brilliant. -- Fiery Phoenix 13:21, April 26, 2011 (UTC) #Finally, I like this - time to change that awful not to mention boring star background. --First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. 14:13, April 27, 2011 (UTC) #Looks good to me! :) SpartHawg948 18:18, May 1, 2011 (UTC) #Looks cool! --Legionwrex 18:56, May 1, 2011 (UTC) Neutral Against Comments Given that this has been discussed, almost to death, I'll open the voting right away.JakePT 14:06, April 25, 2011 (UTC) What's the voting period on these things? 7 Days? JakePT 18:07, April 25, 2011 (UTC) :I believe so. I think in the wiki guidelines, these are open for 7 days, then the votes are tabulated to determine the result. After it is implemented, the cooldown goes into effect. Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem 18:08, April 25, 2011 (UTC) ::Yep it's seven days, but at this rate, I think this will be the biggest landslide yet. Lancer1289 18:11, April 25, 2011 (UTC) :::Oh yes indeed. Maybe as good as 50-0. Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem 18:12, April 25, 2011 (UTC) ::::Well we are up to 10, but I don't think there are 50 regular uses so that might be a little out of reach. Lancer1289 23:22, April 25, 2011 (UTC) :::::6 days in and it is so far a landslide 12-0 to change the background. Ironic that this ends tomorrow, the same day as the Canadian federal election. Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem 12:22, May 1, 2011 (UTC) No reason to wait any longer on this. A seven day wait period on something so pushed for as this is silly. -- Humans Vanish 13:24, May 1, 2011 (UTC) :Policy is policy, and it states that we wait seven days, so we wait seven days. No exceptions in something like this. Lancer1289 15:56, May 1, 2011 (UTC) ::Yep, it's only fair. We're almost there, less than 20 hours to go before the voting can be concluded. -- Commdor (Talk) 18:12, May 1, 2011 (UTC) :::Indeed. Were we to follow that rationale, I'd suggest we also conclude voting early on the language policy forum. It's got better than 2-1 support with only three days left. But policy ''is policy. If we make special exceptions for one, people will want it for others too. SpartHawg948 18:20, May 1, 2011 (UTC) Alright! Glad this is finally over. Congrats JakePT :) -- Humans Vanish 12:39, May 2, 2011 (UTC) Ok, I can't figure this out. The image doesn't seem to be uploading to the Theme Designer for me. :S JakePT 13:04, May 2, 2011 (UTC) Haha, I noticed. I was sitting here watching the sides turn black and go back several times. I could tell you were jacking with it. Ah well, we can wait a little bit longer. Maybe try google, Jake. -- Humans Vanish 13:08, May 2, 2011 (UTC) From what I can tell the theme is changing just fine, but the image file itself is not being updated on the server. Not sure what the cause of this is, but I'll get on to wikia support. If another admin gets on before I hear back from them, then they can try. The background file is this exact file: JakePT 13:35, May 2, 2011 (UTC) :PS: The background you're seeing now is the star field, however according to the Theme Designer, it isn't. If something happens and the file gets updated, all that needs to be done is for Tiling to be turned off. JakePT 13:37, May 2, 2011 (UTC) ::I took care of the tiling, but the image doens't appear to be showing up. Perhaps it just needs time to update, but it should be done any time now. Lancer1289 13:40, May 2, 2011 (UTC) :::When uploading it through the Photo Uploader I get the error "File extension does not match MIME type." For some reason the JPEG I'm uploading is not being recognised as the right file type for what the Background needs to be.JakePT 13:45, May 2, 2011 (UTC) ::::I contacted JoePlay about the issue so hopefully he'll drop by at some point and get it sorted out. Lancer1289 13:52, May 2, 2011 (UTC) I can see it trying to work again... Go ME Wiki! You can do it! lol -- Humans Vanish 13:42, May 2, 2011 (UTC) :I see black background now and honestly it is still better than the starry one. --kiadony 15:59, May 2, 2011 (UTC) :: Kiadony, I couldn't agree more - everything is better than the previous background.--Morinth's Lover 16:08, May 2, 2011 (UTC) According to the CSS source code, you guys left out the file extension. — Teugene (Talk) 16:03, May 2, 2011 (UTC) :Well, that's for the cause of the black blackground and the missing starry background at least... — Teugene (Talk) 16:06, May 2, 2011 (UTC) ::I moved the file to a name with a file extension, but that by itself doesn't appear to have worked. I've done all I can do. :P -- Commdor (Talk) 16:56, May 2, 2011 (UTC) :::I guess we'll have to wait and see if JoePlay can sort it out. Lancer1289 16:59, May 2, 2011 (UTC) Update Well JoePlay got back to me and stated that he doesn't know why it isn't working. He tested it on another wiki and it worked fine there, but for some reason it isn't here. He said he will pass this along to Wikia's tech guys/girls, and they should be able to fix it. Hopefully. See more here. Lancer1289 20:17, May 2, 2011 (UTC) :I may be a little late here but I've found that replacing a picture with a newly uploaded file seems to take a couple weeks, give or take a month, for it to update. This has happened with three pictures that I've uploaded now. The first one was a picture of Doran, the owner of Flux. I uploaded several new pictures to try and replace the old one but it didn't get updated so I had to replace it with a whole new file and edited the article to point to the new one. The picture of Liara http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/File:Liara_Broker_Message.jpg had the same problem where the old picture stayed and the new picture took about a month to update. There is a current picture http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/File:Kian_Louros.png that is a perfect example. I've noticed that the current background is loading a centered picture of the starry background because tiling has been recently turned off so it is still using the old picture although a new picture has been uploaded. My guess is this bug could be related. Freakium 23:37, May 2, 2011 (UTC) ::I think that's a caching-related issue. When I upload new versions of images, I also experience a delay before the new image is visible. Now I'm not an expert on this technical stuff, but I think the problem with the new background might be a different thing. Or not. I am a little disappointed that we had the bad luck for this to happen, I was looking forward to seeing the new background. -- Commdor (Talk) 04:07, May 3, 2011 (UTC) :::Murphy's Law reigns supreme unfortunately. Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem 04:33, May 3, 2011 (UTC) Like I said, we'll just have to wait and see what happens. I don't think it should take too long to fix. Fingers crossed. Lancer1289 04:39, May 3, 2011 (UTC) :The background's back.. the starry one at least :/ — Teugene (Talk) 07:53, May 3, 2011 (UTC) ::Yeah I did that, I figured the old background was better than no background.JakePT 09:26, May 3, 2011 (UTC) :::So what becomes of the new voted background? Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem 12:13, May 3, 2011 (UTC) ::::We, again, wait to see if Wikia sorts it out and puts up the new background. How many times did I say that now. Lancer1289 12:51, May 3, 2011 (UTC) I take it you haven't heard anything yet? This is kind of a bummer, and I assumed they'd have been on it by now.JakePT 05:38, May 5, 2011 (UTC) :I would have left a message if I had heard something, but I haven't heard anything yet. If I hear nothing by Friday, I'll leave another message and see what happens. Lancer1289 05:46, May 5, 2011 (UTC) So, thanks to a workaround provided by Azaelius, I seem to have it working. I just need to make sure it's working for everyone else. It's working for Azaelius, so I don't see why it wouldn't be for anyone else, but you never know. If it isn't working, try emptying your browser's cache and trying again.JakePT 13:44, May 10, 2011 (UTC) ::It's working for me. Looks awesome. -- Commdor (Talk) 14:42, May 10, 2011 (UTC) :::Working for me now... looks amazing. I'm awestruck by the sheer scale of the Citadel. Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem 02:30, May 11, 2011 (UTC) ::::Addendum: What's inevitable though is that unlike the starry image which can be overlapped again and again, this can't as it won't look nice, and therefore the background fades to black the more down you go. Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem 02:32, May 11, 2011 (UTC) :::::Is that a bad thing? :P :::::This type of fading background is very common on other wikis simply because it allows for much more relevant subject matter in the background as opposed to tiled backgrounds that are only remotely related to the wiki's content. Personally, I prefer the complex background instead of the monotonous repeated starry night ensemble. Also, you could have the background fade to any color if the designer wanted to change the color of the layer underneath the Citadel picture and then match the hexidecimal code in the CSS for a smooth transition. Theoretically, you could even make the background fade into the starry night tiles, but it would require a huge image and subsequently would drastically increase the page load times. '''Azaelius (Talk) 03:22, May 11, 2011 (UTC) Hey gang - we may have a new issue. A user is reporting to me that the new background doesn't show up for unregistered users. Instead, apparently the old one does. Any ideas why this is so? SpartHawg948 09:18, May 12, 2011 (UTC) :Probably due to the method we used (changing the CSS, rather than using the Theme Designer). I'm afraid this is probably the best we can do until Wikia gets off their butts.JakePT 09:32, May 12, 2011 (UTC) ::Roger copy. As long as we've got some idea of why this is happening, and there's a solution (probably) in works. Here's hoping Wikia fixes this with the quickness. SpartHawg948 09:37, May 12, 2011 (UTC) :::Thought I might as well log out, empty my cache and quit my browser then come back. The new background appears for me, even when logged out. :S JakePT 11:47, May 12, 2011 (UTC) :I know that on wikis such as Avatar Wiki, the background fills the whole page, but it is programmed to be static (it'll remain in the same place, even if one scrolls up or down the text screen...). Maybe it could be modified to that format. Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem 11:25, May 12, 2011 (UTC) ::It's easy to do, a simple CSS property, and I'd be 100% in favour of it. Not sure how much leeway in terms of implementation this vote gives me though, since this vote didn't discuss whether it would be fixed or not. I'm not sure if we'd need to do a whole new vote to decide.JakePT 11:42, May 12, 2011 (UTC) :::I'd err on the side of caution here and make a forum for the proposed change if I were you... even if this involves modifying the CSS, it is still a significant enough change. Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem 12:27, May 12, 2011 (UTC) ::::Yeah I'd rather have the background static than having a black background when I scroll to be bottom. — Teugene (Talk) 15:40, May 12, 2011 (UTC) :::::Alas, there's a slight problem. The current background can't be seen at once in its entirety; the page has to be scrolled down a bit to see the rest of it. Modifying the CSS to make the background static would inadvertently cut off its bottom portion. This would be unfortunate, unless something can be done about adjusting the image or the CSS parameters. Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem 16:20, May 12, 2011 (UTC) ::::::I've viewed the page with 2 different screens sizes and honestly, it's only a little cut off at the bottom. I don't mind it since the bottom part fades off to black anyway. Anything better than just a black background. — Teugene (Talk) 16:29, May 12, 2011 (UTC)